Bicultural Aspects of Child Rearing

Last night we had the somewhat stressful experience of taking SCT to the paediatric emergency unit after an episode of intestinal flu left her dehydrated. After the drama of deciding at 9pm that this situation really did merit emergency treatment and the drive in the dark to the hospital, we sat in the waiting room and watched as other children were called up to register to be seen.

Each time they were handed a small thermometer and disappeared into the toilets.

UFM, who had twigged more quickly than I did, turned to me with fear in his eyes and said, "What do we do if they ask us to take her rectal temperature?" (At home we have an electronic thermometer that we use in SCT's ears. We've only once been asked by a doctor if we've taken her temperature in  the "correct" (because apparently more accurate) way.)

In what was probably not my proudest moment as either a mother or a loyal wife, I replied, "This is your culture. You'll have to do it."

And he did ... this time round. I have a nasty feeling, though, that this is a skill I am going to have to learn.

Liberté, Egalité (Baby)

Yesterday afternoon at 16:34, women in France staged a walkout from work to highlight the fact that, due to the gender pay gap, for the rest of 2016, French women will effectively be working for free. And France is not the worst offender, with a pay gap which is actually below the EU average and significantly less than in the UK or Germany.

Equality between the sexes is a subject which has been on my mind a lot recently, particularly as I am currently taking parental leave and being paid precisely nothing at all.

"On paper" I really have nothing to complain about. Compared to many other countries, France offers a lot of options in terms of balancing career and family. I had 16 weeks of maternity leave on full pay, and Understanding Frenchman and I both have the right to take time off work or work part time right up until our daughter is three, when she will be starting school. And while the state handouts are not as generous as they used to be for parents taking time off, there is quite a lot of financial and structural support for childcare, making going back to work a relatively easy and financially viable decision. The liberté of choice is there.

On a personal level, I'm also happy to be spending time at home with our baby. It has its lonely and difficult moments, but generally I enjoy our days together and I appreciate having the flexibility to take things as they come. I would have found it very hard to leave her when she was 3 months old, but by the time I do go back to work, I think we'll both be ready for a bit more variety and stimulation. I don't even really mind doing the lion's share of the housework, given that I have the time (and also have to live with the consequences of not doing it all day every day). It seems only fair that when UFM comes home from a long day or week at work, he should spend time with the baby rather than mopping the kitchen floor.

So the problem is not that childcare is currently my full-time job. What frustrates me and gets my feminist hackles up is when looking after the baby turns in to my all-time job. And by that I mean the times when, even when both of us are there, UFM gets on with other things without a second thought and I am left, literally, holding the baby.

It's not that my husband is sexist. Pre-baby, we had a wonderfully balanced relationship where housework was mostly shared out according to who hated doing what the least and he was actually better at some typically "female" things, like remembering birthdays, than me. And since the baby was born, he's been a caring and involved dad who can do all aspects of childcare apart from breastfeeding just as well as I can.

So how did we get into this situation where looking after the baby is, by default, only my job?

Feeding is the most obvious practical element. SCB considers expressed milk in a bottle as the equivalent of serving vintage Moet in a plastic cup and reacts with fervent Gallic protest, meaning that if I do want to go out without her, I have to plan it into a three-hour window of freedom and/or hope that she doesn't wake up before she's expected to. And when you're keeping track of feeding, you tend to keep track of naps and nappy changes as well, which leads to also being the person who is keeping tabs on her exact position on the living room floor and whether she is about to suffocate on a cuddly blanket.

A long working hours culture is another one. UFM leaves the house at 8am every morning and returns at 8pm. This corresponds almost perfectly to SCB's waking hours, meaning that even just having bathtime with daddy is tricky on weeknights. As a result, he is less tuned in to her routine and the cues that certain things need to happen, meaning that he does sometimes depend on me to tell him what needs to be done.

With the move and all the work we've had to do on our flat, we've also been forced recently to adopt a largely divide and conquer approach to getting things done. And dividing according to stereotypical gender roles is often the most efficient approach, even if it isn't the most fair.

Finally, I am to some extent my own worst enemy, partly because I like looking after SCB and partly because I find it hard to relinquish control. I know that I don't need to be checking up on everything that UFM does as a dad, but if I hang around or offer suggestions, it definitely looks that way, and I'm so much in the habit of monitoring everything in my own head all week that it's difficult to stop at weekends!

What is the solution? In an ideal world, I think both of us would work part time and each have days in the week when we would be solely responsible for childcare. Unfortunately, while this is technically possible, society is not yet really in sync with the rules and, in my husband's job, it would not be easy to do. (This is partly a sexism thing, but even if he were female, I think he'd be expected to make use of some of that wonderfully available childcare rather than take long-term parental leave.)

Instead, we are trying to make weekend childcare his responsibility. It doesn't mean that he has to do everything, just that it is his job for planning what needs to be done. At the moment, that tends to work on Saturday mornings, while by Sunday afternoon we're more in a sharing situation, but it's a step in the right direction, and I definitely feel more positive about our division of labour by the end of the weekend than I usually do at the end of a long week!

What about everyone else? Any tips for correcting inequality, whether it's in childcare, in your relationships or at work? (And if you know how to get a baby to take an occasional bottle without giving up on breastfeeding, I'm all ears for advice on that too!)